COLUMN: Baseball, bus rides and building relationships

By Jordan Honeycutt, Sun Journal Staff

Published: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 08:18 PM.

Strong bonds are formed across the wide spectrum of sports.

Many of my best friends in my life are buddies from playing childhood backyard football, basketball or Little League baseball and they have carried over throughout my adolescence and early adulthood to this day.

Now that I am a professional in the sports media business, and as a journalist, one of the keys to my job is being able to build relationships with those athletes and coaches that I cover.

I enjoy getting to know all of the history of our local coaches and same with the players.

In my short time in the profession, I’ve built bonds through common playing history and common sports interests with athletes and coaches.

I try my best to be as versatile as I can with how I get to know people.

Everyone has something interesting about them, and for me to be able to get answers more detailed than “we had a good game,” or “It was a lot of fun,” athletes and coaches need to know they can trust me.

Many of my best friends in my life are buddies from playing childhood backyard football, basketball or Little League baseball and they have carried over throughout my adolescence and early adulthood to this day.

Now that I am a professional in the sports media business, and as a journalist, one of the keys to my job is being able to build relationships with those athletes and coaches that I cover.

I enjoy getting to know all of the history of our local coaches and same with the players.

In my short time in the profession, I’ve built bonds through common playing history and common sports interests with athletes and coaches.

I try my best to be as versatile as I can with how I get to know people.

Everyone has something interesting about them, and for me to be able to get answers more detailed than “we had a good game,” or “It was a lot of fun,” athletes and coaches need to know they can trust me.

Hence comes the building of relationships.

Back in Salisbury, our sports reporters rode to games with the team we were covering at times, when we needed to or just wanted to.

I’ve come to know that any and every time I spend time around a team, the guys or girls get more comfortable with you being there and come to learn how much you truly care and how happy for them/proud of them you are.

I had a blast traveling most of the summer with the South Rowan American Legion team and my pal Mike Fisher and his family during a playoff run two years ago while working for the Salisbury Post.

I’ve even heard of some sports reporters in the NBA and MLB ranks traveling with the team they cover.

The reason I bring this up is because Tuesday night, the New Bern Bears baseball team was traveling to No. 1 seed Garner for a second round state playoff game.

It was definitely a priority for us at the Sun Journal and I was assigned to cover the game.

I could have followed the bus in my car, sure no problem, but to me that is lonely and boring at times.

So I asked my good pal, New Bern coach Gary Smith if he minded if I just tagged along and he said “sure.”

There is something about bus rides with a team or just being around that exuberance that makes you feel young again, when you are starting to forget what it is like.

With my personality, I pretty much stay a kid at heart, so it isn’t too hard for me.

The guys were shocked a bit, but excited that I was riding along.

Centerfielder Josh Taylor even tweeted that they had a good luck charm on board, unfortunately it turned out not to be the case, as the Bears lost 5-1.

I wanted to make it a point to sit with and talk to the seniors and upperclassmen on the ride back.

I told some of them what to expect academically in college from my days at Tennessee and to not lose sight of how important this time is in their lives, as well as just talk sports and life.

We even played, sang and danced to the middle of the fourth inning tradition “The Love is Gone” song that New Bern’s team turns into theatrics at their games.

I think all of us, that are athletes or ex-athletes yearn for that feeling of going back to the “good ‘ole days.”

I want to express my gratitude for the experience. It was a lot of fun, even though the Bears lost.

I enjoy being around all of our local schools’ teams and have coaches and athletes from all of the schools whom I consider good friends.

There’s something about a great game and a nice ride that makes me wonder what I did to be lucky enough to do this for a living, so thanks fellas.